


old man rogers

by riddleinacapitalm



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A little crack, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), canon react and also fix it but not really, gratuitous dust puns, quantum tunnels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 15:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18950860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riddleinacapitalm/pseuds/riddleinacapitalm
Summary: SPOILERS FOR ENDGAMEshort and semi-sweet post-endgame fic.





	1. Chapter 1

Commander Rogers shouldn’t have been in the field.

He was still strong, still sharp, but he had been out of active combat for decades and it showed. It was his blasted stubborn streak, as Peggy would delicately phrase with a swift kick to his behind (as if she wasn't just as bad as he was.)

The situation had just called for it. He may have had a few decades of retirement but couldn't impact much without the Ancient One kicking his ass, so his support network was still the same as he'd left it in the future/past. Sparse and without the manpower to deal with this from a distance.

The situation was Nathaniel Richards. Gone during the snap, wife lost in those five years, and once the dust settled and he was confirmed living he had disappeared. Cashed out his kid's college fund, left said kid in the foster care he had been living in during the snap years, and bought and abandoned building and a bunch of mechanical parts. In this day and age of superhumans, genius scientists had a list people kept track of and this Richards guy checked off all of them.

He was just supervising the recon. Their team had been slow building after the snap and their active players weren’t all suited to stealth missions. Rick Jones was a new recruit Natasha had been keeping an eye on for awhile. During the snap Jones had formed a network in his community to keep things safe, kept the looting down, calmed down the worst of it in his area.

He’s not quite combat ready but he’s smart, quick, and quiet, all the things necessary for this recon mission. And with Steve picking up where Nat left off, the mission should be a bicycle ride in the park. One with heavy duty training wheels.

As in Steve sitting at a cafe chair in Central City, tablet in his lap like he’s reading a novel, keeping an eye on things across the street because the anti-surveillance technology Richards had were some real sophisticated pieces of tech. He pinched two fingers together on his screen and stretched them apart, blowing up the image so he could see the notes Rick had spread in Richards’ office.

“Not quite a pym particle, but that does look pretty damn close to a quantum tunnel doesn’t it.” Steve says under his breath.

Jones taps once on the desk in agreement.

“Okay, good job. Now let’s get the documents back in order and get out of here.”

Jones looks at the reflective window so the camera in his contact lens picks up the flat expression he is making.

“Yeah, yeah, you're a big kid. Whatever. Let’s get out before Richards gets back from lunch.”

If Tony were here, he would have said he jinxed it.

Richards comes back early walking quickly and pressing madly at the apple watch on his wrist. They’ve been made.

Steve shoots out a warning to Jones but it’s too late. The windows close up with a black material, backup is twenty three minutes away at the earliest, and he knows what he’s about to do is stupid. Rick is stuck in a hallway with locked doors and no windows and a mad genius headed in his direction.

The external windows and doors are sealed shut with a faintly glowing forcefield, spectators starting to gather and draw their phones at what they suspect will be an incident. The walls are not reinforced, just wood and plaster, and a reckless plan is starting to form in Steve’s mind.

“Stay safe, Jones. I’m coming.”

He may be old, but he’s still got a couple good hits in him. In his prime he would have only needed six feet to barrel through a foot of drywall, so he gives himself a good twenty five and starts running but this whole mission is a clusterfuck and even though their population has doubled it’s like all of the people Steve relied on have been halved and he should have waited for Buck to come back to run this mission--

A car speeds out through the sealed garage door, forcefield sending out a pulse of energy, and the car is glowing while heading for him. He tries his best to kick up and spin his way over the car but his age has slowed him down and oh sh- 


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> steve wakes up

When he wakes up to an unfamiliar ceiling and a smell of sanitizer that screams ‘hospital’, he only panics for a second.

“Captain Rogers. Glad to see you are awake. Real quick, can you say, ‘I’m baby’ for me?”

He releases the breath he’d been holding in relief. If Shuri can make him the butt of a joke he’s probably fine.

“I’m baby.” Steve says in a dry tone. He wonders briefly why Shuri isn’t in Wakanda before remembering the Oakland outreach program, remembers Richards is in Central City, only an hour or so drive away, less if it’s Wakandan tech.

And wait a minute.

His voice is clearer. Deeper.

He sits up quickly.

Quicker than his old body should be able to.

He looks at his hands, free of wrinkles, hairs taking on a yellow tint instead of the familiar silver of old age. It’s been awhile since he’s seen these hands but they’re still familiar to him. They’re the hands that have fought through wars, protected masses, killed hundreds.

“So he didn’t factor in the grandfather paradox, huh.”

“Richards certainly came close. From the footage I grabbed off of the satellite, the quantum tunnel was in his trunk. Quite a sophisticated piece for you Americans, I am impressed. You both were sucked in, but only you came out. The car has disappeared as well.”

Shit.

“So he’s stuck in the quantum realm, or he’s made his Delorean and has created an alternate timeline.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of contacting the ant squad to do further research.”

“Great, great, they can get Jones’ notes and figure out what they did with that car.”

Steve takes a big deep sigh and lies back down regretting all his life choices.

“Jones okay?”

“After he panicked thinking he killed America’s oldest hero? Peachy. Napping next door.”

“Peachy.”

“It would be preferable if you came with me to Wakanda to run some tests, but you are physically stable. I am also no medical doctor, so hear these with a grain of salt.”

“I trust you, Shuri.”

“Great. I also told your visitors you were awake. They are approaching now.”

The door slides open and Sam walks in, full Captain America gear on.

“Hey, old man.” Sam says with such a shit-eating grin and it’s because Steve’s whole life is a joke.

“Real funny.”

Bucky follows after Sam, his combat gear on and hair tied back in a loose bun, expression so blank that Steve is almost worried.

Bucky leaves the room without saying anything and Steve is definitely worried.

 

.

.

.

.

 

What happens is, after the shield has been passed along and Bruce gives Steve a big pat on the shoulder, Sam and Bruce give Bucky a nod and go take a long scenic walk back to base. Bucky wonders if it’s still up to him to start conversations with a one-liner as he goes to sit next to him, if he still has to be older and wiser when his punk’s got a good century on him now.

Steve’s eyes are watery but his smile is calm.

“Miss me, punk?”

His weathered hand reaches for his, solid ring catching on his wakandan hand, metal clinking on metal,  _ her ring,  _ and the strength of his grip surprises Bucky. He’s still solid, still real, still here, just… looks how old Bucky feels now.

“You know I did, Buck. Haven’t reached the end of the line yet.”

Bucky kinda wants to hit him. He hugs him instead and learns how Steve’s body has changed up on him again.

Steve tries to tell him about what happened.

He doesn’t want to know.

 

.

.

.

.

 

What happens is, Bucky hears his geriatric friend has been hit by a car on a simple recon mission that any dumbass could have handled and lowkey rushes over.

He gets to the hospital room and instead of an old man he gets that young dumbshit straight from the barracks with his aw shucks haircut and his left arm in a sling.

Bucky really really wants to hit him.

He raises his eyebrows and leaves the room instead.

 

.

.

.

.

 

The thing is, Bucky can't be mad.

He would have done the same.

If he had the chance, he would have gone right back to that Stark Expo when they found Steve, when that asshole took him and all his dreams of justice and heroism and shot him full of magic steroids. He would have grabbed that punk with a heart too big for his body and squirreled him away somewhere secret. Would have lived quiet and peaceful while the world fought around them, even if Steve ended up hating him for it.

Bucky can’t be mad that Steve’s perfect life didn’t have him in it. He knew how it was going to happen the second Carter walked in the bar with that red dress and Steve’s eyes left his. He just got his hopes up, is all. Thought that after all the fighting he and Steve could rest a little. It was just his dumb ass that thought it would be together.


	3. bucky finally eats a plum

It takes two weeks of Bucky avoiding him for Steve to pull a Fury and wait in the dark in Bucky’s living room on his sofa. He only has to catch a knife and not a bullet wound once Buck gets through the door, so he's pretty sure that Buck knew he was there.

“Steve.”

“Buck.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Buck bypasses the living room into the kitchen and casually starts putting away groceries.

“Just seeing what’s new with you. Haven’t seen you in awhile.”

“Nothing new with me.”

“Right. How was the farmers market?"

"Alright."

They fall into a silence, Steve watching as Buck sorts out the cold groceries from the room temp, the fruit from the vegetables.

Steve gets restless, youth and serum pumping energy into his body that he’s still getting used to. He stands and follows Bucky into the kitchen and starts putting the fruit into the variety of fruit bowls on the counter. It’s when he puts the last of the bananas onto the banana stand(s) that he looks up to see Bucky studying him.

“So are you stuck like this now?”

“As far as they can tell, yeah. Janet van Dyne did a quantum energy checkup, said a few cryptic statements, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing for her to fix and it’d be better to let sleeping dogs lie.” Steve rolls his eyes.

“Shame. With all those wrinkles it harder to see your ugly mug."

Steve narrows his eyes and grabs a plum to take a bite out of, “Guess you’re stuck with me a little longer.”

“You’re not gonna go back? Give Carter another chance with you?” Bucky grabs the plum out of Steve’s hand and takes his own bite, surprising Steve with the less-than-playful tone.

“She already had three super-soldier to deal with, the only point of me going back would be to form a barbershop quartet.”

Steve tries not to smile when he sees Bucky’s brain fail to compute what he just said.

“Two of me and one of you.”

Bucky blinked.

“Because there was past me. But also me-me. And you, too.”

Bucky blinked again.

“Buck, I know you didn’t want me to talk about it, but it's not what you've been thinking it was.  I could never go back to a time when you’re still hurting and not do something about it.

"I know it didn’t change anything in this life, it was just me playing hero, but potentially there’s an infinite amount of universes and if I could spare the hurt for at least a few Bucky’s than it’s worth it, yeah?”

Bucky pinches his nose and tries to calm the growing twitch in his right eyelid.

“How many?”

“What?”

“How many timelines did you change.”

“We only created three timelines when we travelled in time, so…”

Bucky’s eyelid is twitching out of control now.

“I was in a different galaxy for one, and that universe had the Thanos we fought so everything was already changed. The other I already told Steve that you were alive and Hydra was under the assumption that I was also Hydra, so there I mostly tweaked a few things from behind the scenes. But the last one, the earliest one was in the 70s. I was finally able to cut off all the heads before they grew back. Everything was gas and goiters.”

Bucky thinks back to where he was in the 70s. The decades had all blurred together after awhile.

“It took me two years to track you down with the Howlies.”

Bucky stares.

“It took another five to find me.”

Bucky stares harder.

“I went by Grant. Also Nomad.”

Both of Bucky’s eyebrows raise, then look pointedly at the tan line on Steve’s ring finger.

“Howard’s PR department helped me a lot. Gay marriage was legalized 1988. And well, uh. We were all living in a private community. You, me, Steve, Peg, Daniel, Angie-”

“Who?”

“Right. See when you take out the patriarchal elements, polygamy is actually a liberating way of expressing your-”

“Stop. Please.”

“Right.”

“I didn’t wanna blindside you with all this.”

“Ya kinda did anyway, pal.”

“I know. I’m a selfish asshole.”

“Yes.” Bucky shifted his weight from foot to foot, “We were...?”

Steve nods, silent for once.

“So why’d you come back?”

Steve looked away almost bashfully.

“You know why.”

“To hand off a shield, yeah, sure. But why not stay in your Hydra free utopia for good with your big happy family? Why stick around here for your retirement?”

“I loved them all, yeah, but... it wasn’t my time. Once I helped defeat Thanos again,” Bucky rolls his eyes, “I knew I had to come back. I had to know you would be okay, and that you and Sam would have each other’s backs.”

“Sam’s an asshole.”

“You kinda are too, bud.”

“He can be Cap still, but I draw the line at sister-wives.”

“Buck-”

Bucky reaches over the counter and places a chaste kiss on Steve that shuts him up before he can lecture him on the queer polygamy model and toxic masculinity.

“I’m not him. Whatever Buck you were with.”

“I know.” Steve’s smile is lovestruck and stupid and Bucky kisses it off of him.

“I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.”

“I’m making plum tarts. Did you learn how to bake at all while you were gone?”

“Not a thing.”

“Figures.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup! I don't know if this makes me any happier about endgame, but it's definitely a bandage for how the writers did both Bucky and Peggy dirty.

**Author's Note:**

> just a lil endgame pukefest of feels. sorry if transitions are choppy, i haven't written in awhile so might turn this into a mini comic after  
> Fun fact: central city (home of fantastic four) is supposed to be where stockton is, one hour drive from oakland. Do i want a young johnny storm becoming besties with shuri and meeting spiderman? Yes. yes i do.


End file.
